


Drinking Buddies

by Scritto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry is very sad, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, One Shot, Pansy is there for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25666510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scritto/pseuds/Scritto
Summary: The war has taken its toll on Harry Potter and no-one notices, except for Pansy Parkinson. Before she knows it, he begins to come to her whenever life becomes too much for him. She soon finds out, however, that being Harry Potter's drinking buddy is more complicated than she would have ever expected.
Relationships: Pansy Parkinson/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 81





	Drinking Buddies

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm not sure where this fic came from, but my friend was robbed at gunpoint and I needed to distract myself with sad Harry Potter, so here we are. Enjoy!

Pansy felt exhausted. The engagement party was lovely, Draco and Hermione were a lovely couple and all of their guests, even the loud, boisterous Weasley clan, had been nothing short of lovely, but Pansy was over it. So over it.

She didn’t particularly enjoy happy occasions like engagement parties and Christmas parties and generally anything that required a gift and good cheer.

Pansy liked working on her fashion line, in her clean minimalist studio, where she could spend all day losing herself in fabric and colours, barely speaking to anyone else. She liked spending all day wrapped in a blanket, curled up on her couch, away from the outside world. She did not like rowdy parties with hundreds of people swarming around her, asking her about her work and her love life, expecting her to pretend that she actually cared about the lives of people that she hadn’t seen since school. So, after three hours of putting on a good face, Pansy was exhausted.

Leaving the large ballroom at Malfoy Manor in which Draco and Hermione were finally celebrating their hard-won love, Pansy stepped out into the cool October air. She walked across the balcony and down the stairs that led into the rose garden, stopping to study how the flowers glowed in the moonlight.

“Well, well,” a voice drawled behind her, the words slightly slurring. “Pansy Parkinson. All grown up.”

Pansy turned to find Harry Potter watching her from a bench against the wall.

“What are you doing out here, Potter?” she asked.

He took a sip from a glass of Firewhiskey that she now realised he was holding. “Hiding,” he answered casually.

Intrigued, Pansy found herself walking towards him. “From your girlfriend?” she asked mockingly.

“Ex-girlfriend,” he replied coldly, looking her up and down as she came closer. “You look good, Pansy,” he said, his voice low.

Pansy stopped in front of him, meeting his eyes behind his glasses, shining green in the moonlight. She felt her mouth quirk into a curious smile. “And what would you know about how I look?”

Harry laughed. He tilted his head slightly, acknowledging the truth of her words, but then his eyes met hers again and there was a burning intensity to them that contained no trace of humour. “More than you think.”

Pansy felt naked under his gaze. “Is it because of what I did to you? Did you want to see how I fared after a war in which I fought on the wrong side?” She became self-deprecating and sarcastic when she felt cornered and she hated herself for it.

Harry shook his head, leaning his head back against the wall. “No, it started long before that.”

Pansy frowned. They were never friends, they were barely anything more than peripheral enemies. When had he kept tabs on her?

“I used to look at the Slytherins and wonder,” he continued, unbidden. “I wondered what my life would have been like if I’d made different choices. Would I still be the saviour? Would it all be on me? I wondered if my life would have been easier, somehow.”

Pansy looked at Harry, slouched against the wall, his hair even messier than usual, his off-the rack suit crumpled. There were dark bruises under his eyes that Pansy had never noticed before, because she never truly looked at him. Harry Potter was a symbol, he was a hero. He was not a boy who looked this sad.

Not knowing why, Pansy brushed the hair away from his forehead, leaning closer towards him. “It doesn’t help to think of what-ifs, Potter. Trust me, I know. It doesn’t make anything better.”

Harry’s eyes fluttered shut. He leaned his head towards Pansy’s hand and she let him. A part of her mind acknowledged that she was standing inches from him, his head near her chest, and that this was not normal behaviour for them. The dominant part, however, the part she was listening to at the moment, wanted her to close the distance even more.

“What are your what-ifs?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

_You_.

Instead, she said, “The usual. What if I hadn’t worn that dress or slept with that guy.”

Harry opened his eyes and looked up at her. “I don’t believe you.”

They were so close Pansy could feel his breath through her thin dress.

“You’re drunk,” she whispered.

“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

A laugh rang out into the night from the balcony above and Pansy took a step back, reality washing back over her like a wave.

Harry sighed, seemingly with his whole body. “And so the spell breaks,” he muttered.

Pansy looked down at Harry as he still sat folded over on the bench. “You should sober up. Take a shower.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to be sober. That’s why I drank so much in the first place.”

For the first time that evening, Pansy truly worried that Harry was not okay. “Can I take you home, Harry?” she asked, surprised by the gentleness in her voice.

“I don’t want to go home,” Harry growled, standing up. He stumbled forward and Pansy managed to grab hold of him before he fell on his face. He was more unsteady on his feet than Pansy had thought. “I don’t want to go home,” he repeated, burying his face in her shoulder.

She lifted her hand and patted him on his shoulder. “Okay, I won’t take you to your home.”

He lifted his head and met Pansy’s eyes. He looked so lost and inexplicably Pansy felt the desire to save him. So she apparated them away from the party.

***

What the fuck had she been thinking? What possibly could have possessed her to do this?

Pansy sat in the chair next to her bed, holding a cold mug of tea, forgotten in her hands. Harry Potter was lying in her bed, on his stomach with his wild hair fanned out across his closed eyes. He looked like a mess and Pansy could not deny the way it tugged at her heart.

After Apparating him to her flat, she had forced him into the bathroom to take a shower. She grabbed all of the hangover and restorative potions that she could find and ran back to the bathroom only to find him sitting on the floor of the shower, fully dressed as the water beat down on him.

“Oh, Harry,” she whispered, forgetting the water and crouching down in front of him.

He looked up at her with a glazed expression. “I’m so tired, Pansy.”

“I know, I know,” she soothed him. “Let’s get you out of these clothes.”

Helping him up, Pansy drew her wand out of the side of her dress. She cast a spell to dry him off as best she could and led him to her bedroom. Nearly trippin over both their feet, she dumped him on her bed.

Over the years, Draco, Theo and Zabini had left pieces of clothing behind and Pansy took a Slytherin sweatshirt and bottoms that she had kept from the cupboard.

With a faint sense of disassociation, she proceeded to undress Harry Potter. He seemed too drunk or tired or upset to fight her. Once he was dressed, she forced him under the covers, tucking him in. His eyes drifted closed and he was asleep.

Now, after a very uncomfortable night spent on the couch, she had woken up to find him still in her bed, still asleep.

Pansy replayed the previous night in her mind and tried to pinpoint the moment that had led to this. Copious amounts of Firewhiskey was the only logical answer she could come up with.

She was drawn out of her thoughts when Harry stirred and moved his head, groaning. He tried to sit up and Pansy stopped him with a hand. “Hold on, you need to drink this.” She held up a potion to his lips and forced him to drink. “It would have been better if you’d had this last night, but someone decided to pass out on my bed,” she scolded, not quite understanding why she had seemed to settle on this haughty tone in order to deal with the fact that Harry Potter was in her bed.

Harry dutifully swallowed the potion, grimacing at the taste. “That is foul,” he complained.

“Well, that’s what happens when you drown your liver in liquor.”

“Liver in liquor,” he repeated, grinning. “You’re a poet, Parkinson.”

Pansy smiled, sarcastically. “And you’re not as funny as you think you are, Potter.”

Harry rolled onto his back, rubbing his eyes.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“As though a Hippogriff stomped on my head.”

“Sounds about right.” She pulled at his arm. “Get up and come eat something.”

Harry groaned, rolling back onto his stomach. She pulled at his arm again. “I’m serious, get up. Or I will hex you.”

Muttering under his breath, Harry sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed. Pansy offered him a hand. He looked at it skeptically and then up to her face.

“You’re bossier than I remember you being.”

“You’re drunker than I remember you being.”

Harry smiled and took her hand. “Guess it’s been a while,” he answered sadly.

Pansy decided to ignore his tone of voice and dragged him out of the room.

“There,” she pointed at a chair by the kitchen table. She walked over to the fridge and looked inside. “Do you want eggs, bacon, sausage?”

Harry looked a bit green when she turned her head back to look at him.

“I promise you it will help,” she said, unable to keep the smile out of her voice.

She started cooking and she could feel Harry’s eyes dig into her back.

“I’m surprised Pansy Parkinson knows how to cook.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Potter.”

“I look forwarding to finding out more about you.”

Pansy paused, her spatula hovering over the pan. Taking a steadying breath, she turned around to face him. “How exactly are you going to find out more about me?”

Harry smiled, sheepishly. “I’ll just keep watching you.”

“So, you want to stalk me?”

“I’m not the one who brought me home.”

Pansy was not used to this side of Harry. He had sharper edges than she was used to and she could not imagine the Harry she knew at school challenging her the way he did now.

“You were drunk and it was the least I could do.”

“We were at a party with all of my closest friends. You could have asked any one of them to take me home.”

Pansy didn’t know what to say to that. She hadn’t even thought of calling anyone. Harry had told her he was hiding and he had seemed so upset, that it hadn’t even seemed like an option at the time.

“I didn’t think you wanted to be around any of them,” she found herself saying.

Harry lowered his eyes and started tapping the table with his fingers. “What gave it away?”

“What’s going on, Harry?” The breakfast forgotten, she sat down in the chair next to him. She stilled his tapping fingers and took his hand in hers.

“Can we not talk about it, please?” His voice had a hint of pleading. “I just want to sit here and not think about it.”

“Okay,” she replied, finally.

With a last concerned look, she went back to preparing their breakfast.

They sat at the table and ate in silence for a few awkward minutes.

“This is actually pretty decent.”

Pansy smiled. “I am a very talented witch, Potter.”

Harry grinned and she thought that some of the sadness had lifted from his features.

***

Harry spent the rest of the day at her flat. They lay on the couch, him reading the old Daily Prophets that were piled on her coffee table, as she sketched and drew. It was strange to have him there, but she found she didn’t mind. This new Harry Potter was quieter and more subdued than the one she had known before. She found it easier to be with him, now that she had glimpsed how human he could be. He may have been the Chosen One and the saviour, but he was also broken and Pansy coud deal with broken.

Late afternoon, he stood up and walked to her room. He came out wearing the suit from the party. Pansy wondered at how disappointed she felt, seeing him get ready to leave.

“Thank you for last night, Pansy,” he told her, his voice low. “And for today.”

“Any time, Potter.” What was she saying? This could never happen again. It shouldn’t.

“I’ll remember that.”

And then he was gone. Pansy looked around at her empty flat, not understanding why it suddenly felt so big.

***

Pansy did not hear from him for three weeks. She had just managed to force him out of her mind, managed to get through most of her day without constantly worrying about him and remembering the sadness in his green eyes, when he showed up at her studio.

As her assistant led him into the workroom, the girl’s eyes were as big as saucers, clearly shocked at being in the presence of the Chosen One.

“Hello, Potter,” she greeted coldly, trying to convince herself that she had not crushed her face in the pillow he had slept on, wondering if it would smell like him.

“Pansy,” he grinned when he saw her. He turned to her assistant. “Thank you for showing me around, Katherine.” Pansy’s assistant looked on the verge of fainting and giggled hysterically as she backed out of the room.

“Nice place,” he said, walking around the workroom.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, feeling like cutting to the chase.

He continued his exploration, pretending not to hear her. He lifted swatches of fabric and looked through her sketches. She wanted to get this over with, but couldn’t quite make herself stop watching him.

Finally, he came to lean on the table where she was working, standing next to her.

“Do you want to go for a drink?” he asked her.

“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“On a Friday. Come on, take an early weekend.”

He leaned his head close to Pansy, trying to catch her eye.

“I’m busy, Potter. Some of us have jobs, you know. We’re not all Auror-dropouts who live off family money and fame.”

Harry ignored the jab and said, “It’s a perk of being the boss. You can set your own hours.”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “I am the boss, because I put in the work. I don’t take early weekends.”

Harry watched her as she draped a piece of fabric on the mannequin. He was quiet for so long that she started to worry she had offended him somehow.

“What if I need a drink?” he asked, his voice low.

She turned around and found him looking at her, his eyes raw and filled with an emotion that she didn’t even want to begin to analyse.

“Do you think that’s the answer to everything?”

“No, it isn’t. That’s why I want to try it with you.”

Pansy barked a laugh. “I’m not your answer, either, Potter.”

Harry shrugged. “I felt better with you. I think you make me feel safe.”

Pansy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was he completely delusional? “I told the Death Eaters where you were, how can I make you feel safe? You should hate me.”

Harry shrugged again. “I’ve been through a lot. I don’t think clearly.”

Pansy shook her head. “You’re not going to find any absolution in the arms of the enemy, Harry.”

“Are you my enemy?” he asked, his voice so vulnerable that Pansy felt her heart crack a little.

“Fine, I’ll have one drink with you. But I’m not nursing you back to health again. I will leave you there if you get pissed.”

Harry grinned. “Let’s go.”

***

Pansy cracked open an eye. The light streaming through the window blinded her and her head felt heavy. She rolled onto her side and her arm brushed against a body lying next to her.

A mess of dark hair covered the pillow and she jolted awake, realising that she was lying in bed next to Harry Potter.

Harry’s eyes slid open. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, mortified. She resisted the urge to run her hands up and down her body to determine her state of undress. Under the covers, she could see that Harry was at least wearing a T-shirt.

He rubbed a hand across his face. “You asked me to stay after I brought you home. You were a bit of a mess, so I felt better staying here with you.”

Memories of her downing more than a few shots came back to her and she groaned. “That doesn’t answer why you’re in my bed,” she snapped.

Harry brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “You wanted me to sleep with you.”

When Pansy’s face took on a horrified expression, he quickly added, “Just to sleep. We didn’t do anything.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. Getting drunk with Harry Potter was already a bad idea, having sex with him was a travesty.

“You shouldn’t have stayed. I was drunk.”

“I wanted to stay.”

Harry was looking at her with such a soft expression that she wanted to melt into the sheets. “I’m not your answer, Harry.”

“I know,” he whispered. He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Strangely, his mouth quirked into a smile. “You can really drink, though, Parkinson. I don’t think I’ve ever been that impressed with a Slytherin.”

Pansy found herself laughing, despite herself. “At least it kept you from drinking yourself into a stupor.”

Harry turned to look at her. “I liked looking after you. Really.”

Pansy did not know how to respond. No-one looked after her, no-one had ever cared to. Her friends tried their best, but they were not a naturally caring lot. Not like Harry and his friends who were like a pack of dogs, practically licking and snuggling at each other constantly. Her chest felt strangely warm, thinking of Harry caring for her in her drunken state.

“I’m not planning on making a habit of it,” she assured him.

He turned back onto his side to face her. He took her hand in his. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

Pansy didn’t know what to say, so instead, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, still holding Harry Potter’s hand.

***

Pansy wasn’t sure how it happened, but after that day, Harry Potter became a fixture in her life. Every few days, he would show up at her workroom or her flat and they would go out for a drink. Mostly he limited himself to only a few, but he still drank too much for her liking. It was only on exceptionally difficult days that he drank himself blind. Those days, she would take him back to her flat and let him cry until he fell asleep. In the morning, she would make him breakfast and they would pretend that everything was normal.

They never kissed or had sex, but Pansy had spent more nights sleeping next to Harry than she had any other man in her life. She knew that it was crazy and strange and made no sense. Each time he showed up, she swore to herself that it would be the last time, but each time he would grin at her with those green eyes and she would lose herself.

One evening, Harry showed up at her flat and told her to put on a nice dress.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Not telling,” he replied, toying with the vase of flowers that stood on her kitchen counter.

“Outside or inside?”

Harry shook his head. “No clues.”

“I need to know if it’s going to be cold or not, you dolt.”

“Oh,” Harry looked a bit sheepish. “It should be warm enough.”

Pansy picked a black, long-sleeved dress, that reached her thighs and cinched at the waist. It was simple, but elegant, and Pansy paired it with delicate gold jewellery.

Harry nodded approvingly when she walked back into the living room.

“Let’s go,” he said, offering her his hand.

She took it, feeling a bit wary.

***

They reappeared in front of Draco and Hermione’s flat. Harry knocked on the door.

“Why didn’t you telling me we were coming here?”

Hermione opened the door. “Harry, finally.” She frowned when she saw Pansy standing there. “Pansy, what are you doing here?”

“She’s with me,” Harry answered, giving Hermione a kiss on the cheek as he walked past her through the door.

Pansy shrugged helplessly at Hermione who ushered her inside.

Harry was already pouring himself a drink by the time Pansy reached the living room. He was joking with Ron, who was sitting on the couch next to his girlfriend, Lavender Brown. Luna Lovegood was perched on the arm of the sofa and smiled dreamily at Pansy as she walked in.

“Pansy, I didn’t know you were coming,” Draco said in a surprised voice as he walked in with a bucket of ice.

“She’s with me,” Harry answered.

“Harry asked me to come,” she told him, tired of Harry speaking for her. “Not sure why, exactly.”

“You’re always welcome, Pansy,” Hermione assured her. “It was just a bit of a Gryffindor reunion party, so we didn’t think you or the boys would want to come.”

Draco smiled a bit sheepishly.

Pansy shot a glare at Harry, truly not understanding why he had done this to her. He didn’t seem to notice and started pouring himself a second drink. Pansy walked over and put a hand on Harry’s arm. “I think you should slow down,” she whispered.

Harry shrugged her off. “It’s a bad day, Pansy.”

That was the shorthand they used when he planned on drinking himself into oblivion and she needed to slow down so that she could pick up the pieces.

She grabbed the drink from him and downed it. “You’ve brought me into the lion’s den, Potter, it’s turned into my bad day.”

“Hi, everyone!” a new voice called from the door. Ginny Weasley smiled at the group as Luna jumped up and hugged her. Harry stiffened next to Pansy and suddenly it clicked in her head. Harry knew he was going to see his ex-girlfriend tonight, so he had decided to bring Pansy along to- what? Make Ginny jealous? It wasn’t as if they were together. They didn’t kiss, let alone have sex. They drank together and Harry cried. She was an outsider who he could show the weight of his despair to. That was it.

“Hiya, Harry,” Ginny said when she spotted him. “Pansy, this is a surprise.”

“It will be a short-lived one, I’m afraid,” Pansy replied with a caustic smile. She shoved the glass back into Harry’s hand and turned to leave.

“Pansy!” he called after her. She ignored him and walked out the door. She ran down the stairs, needing to escape. Stupidly, she had forgotten to take her wand, because she had been distracted by wondering where he was taking her, because she was naive and had allowed herself to think that what they had, meant something to stupid, broken Harry Potter.

Once outside, the cold, December air hit her like a blast. How the fuck was she supposed to get home? She could walk back upstairs and Floo home, but that would mean facing everyone again, facing Harry and Ginny and the fact that he clearly wasn’t over her yet.

“Pansy!” Harry called, appearing through the doorway. “What are you doing, it’s freezing out here.”

“What the fuck was that, Potter?” she screamed, punching him in the chest.

His face looked stricken. “What do you mean? I invited you to a dinner.”

Pansy’s cheeks burned as she felt tears stream down her face. “No, you didn’t. You brought me, because Ginny was going to be here. I’m not going to let you use me in some sick attempt to get back at your ex-girlfriend.”

“That’s not why I asked you to come!”

“Like hell it’s not.”

Harry ran a hand through his hair, frustration seeping out of him. “I asked you, because I thought I could make it through the evening if you were here. I thought, maybe if Pansy’s with me, I won’t have to drink myself into a stupor in order to stand being around everyone.”

“You already seemed on the way to becoming completely pissed, so I don’t think I made much of a difference,” Pansy retorted.

“If you weren’t here, I would have showed up drunk.”

Pansy felt as if he had struck her. “Harry, why do you drink so much?”

It was the question she wasn’t supposed to ask, it was the question that hung in the air between them each morning after he had drunk and cried himself into a mess in her bed.

Harry refused to look at her. She took a step forward and placed her hand on his cheek. “Please, Harry. Just talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk, Pansy.”

She dropped her hand. “We’re done, Harry. I can’t do this anymore. If you’re not willing to talk, we’re done.”

Pansy turned on her heel and walked away, tears flowing freely down her face.

***

The following Monday, Draco came to her workroom at lunchtime.

“Can I stick you for lunch?”

Pansy regarded him from behind the mannequin that she was pinning a dress onto. “Why?”

Draco sighed and sank down into a chair. “Why not? Can’t I ask my best friend to lunch?”

“No, you can’t,” she said through a mouth-full of pins.

“Come on, Pans. We haven’t talked properly for ages.”

“Yes, that’s because you’re busy planning a wedding to golden girl Granger. Don’t worry, Draco. Enjoy it. You deserve to be happy.”

Draco stood up and walked closer to her, leaning against the worktable. “Pansy, what’s going on between you and Harry Potter?”

Pansy dropped the piece of material that she was about to pin. “Nothing.”

“Saturday night didn’t seem like nothing. You looked like he upset you.”

“He didn’t,” Pansy said, pinning the piece of material in place. It was better when her hands were busy. They shook less.

“Hermione says no-one knows what Harry’s been up to. Some nights, she or Ron will go round and he won’t be home. Do you know anything about that?”

Pansy sighed. “He’s fucked up.”

Draco frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He drinks too much. Not every day, but most days.” Now that she had started, the words just started pouring out of her. “He comes here and then we drink and he cries and I look after him. I take him to my place, because he hates going home. I don’t know why and he won’t tell me, but at least if I’m with him I can keep him from splicing himself or cracking his head open when he passes out.”

Draco listens to her wordlessly until she finishes her rant. “I know he has a tendency to drink a bit too much, but I didn’t know it was this bad. Do you have any idea why?”

“He won’t tell me,” Pansy sobbed, crying before she even realised she had started. “Every time I ask, he just shuts down.” Draco took her in his arms. “I don’t know how to help him, Draco. He’s so sad and I can’t help him.”

Draco didn’t say anything, just holding her as she cried.

Pansy wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, but when she was relatively calm, Draco released her and went to make her a cup of tea.

She sat sipping the warm liquid, waiting for Draco to say something. He sat with his arms on his knees, staring into space.

“Draco, the floor of my workroom is not that interesting,” she said in a poor attempt at humour.

Draco leaned back and looked at Pansy. “Do you have feelings for him?”

Pansy looked down at her tea. “It’s not like that. We don’t… we haven’t…”

“Does it matter?” Draco asked.

Pansy sighed. “Probably not.”

Draco kept looking at her, waiting for more.

“I don’t know how it happened. He was… he was just there.”

“How does he feel about you?”

Pansy felt as though the tears were coming again. “I have no idea. I don’t think he’s over Ginny.”

Draco frowned. “You’re telling me he’s been coming round to yours for months, crying in front of you and sleeping in your bed and you think he’s not over his ex?”

“I’m his drinking buddy,” Pansy assured him. “That’s all.”

Draco scoffed. “He looked pretty gutted running after his drinking buddy Saturday night. Hermione found him half frozen on the front steps.”

It was Pansy’s turn to look confused. “What do you mean?”

“You two didn’t come back, so Hermione went downstairs to check on you and found Harry sitting on the front steps. He was practically catatonic. She took him home, but he refused to say a word.”

“That doesn’t mean he cares about me.”

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t,” Draco said, stubbornly. “If what you say is true, I think he needs to do a fuck-ton of self-reflection before he’s good enough to be with you, but I don’t want to see you unhappy either.”

“He needs to be good enough for me?” Pansy scoffed. “I think I’m the one not good enough for him in this scenario.”

“Pansy,” Draco said earnestly, “you need to stop torturing yourself over what happened. You were a scared teenager. You’re not that person anymore.”

“Our families made him this way, Draco. It’s all our fault.”

Draco crouched down in front of her, taking both her hands in his. “The war is over, Pans. We need to forgive ourselves.”

Pansy shook her head. “It’s not over for him.”

“Okay. Then we need to help him.”

***

Two evenings later, when Pansy exited the elevator and walked to her door, she found Harry Potter sitting next to it, his head bent forwards with his arms on his knees. She stopped in front of him, staring at him until he tilted his head up.

“Draco Malfoy showed up at my house today and told me I need to make this right or he would burn my house down with me in it,” Harry said, answering a question she had not asked.

They looked at each other for a moment, until Pansy stepped forward and unlocked the door. She didn’t bother to look behind her to check that Harry was following her, she simply left the door open. She took off her coat and dropped her bag on the table in the entrance hall. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. When she finally felt ready, she turned to see Harry standing awkwardly between the kitchen and the living room.

“Sit down, Harry,” she said, not unkindly. “You look like a lost penguin.”

“I’ve never been compared to a penguin.” Harry sounded mildly offended.

Pansy sat down in the armchair and waited for him to sit down on the couch. Eventually he did, and another awkward silence descended between them.

When Harry didn’t speak, Pansy asked, “Are you going to say something any time soon?”

“Got any Firewhiskey?” Harry joked.

Pansy didn’t deign to reply.

Harry took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. “That was a poor joke. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

“Are you going to talk to me?” Pansy asked, ignoring his apology.

Harry looked at her before answering. “Ask me and I’ll try.”

“Why do you drink so much?”

“Because everything hurts,” he replied simply.

Pansy found herself getting out of the armchair and crouching down in front of Harry. “Tell me,” she whispered.

And then he did. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the saviour of the Wizarding World, told Pansy everything. He described how he struggled to sleep if he didn’t drink, because he would have nightmares about Cedric Diggory and Sirius Black. How when he was around his friends he would have flashbacks of the war and how they had fought side by side. He told her that sometimes he wished he had stayed dead, because he felt like he had nothing left to live for anymore. And finally, he told her that she made him feel calm, calmer than he had in years. When he looked at her, he didn’t feel overwhelmed by memories of the war or Hogwarts. The moment she had identified him, she had shown him her worst self and that made him able to show her his worst self, something he felt impossible to do in front of his friends.

Pansy listened to him and held him close, wishing she could fight off every demon that haunted him.

When he was done, they lay side by side on the couch, Harry’s arms around her waist as he held her close. She traced the outline of his nose and cheeks.

“You know,” she said, quietly, barely above a whisper, “I feel like we’ve gone through a break-up and a make-up and you’ve never even kissed me.”

She felt his chest rumble against her as he chuckled. “Do you want me to kiss you, Pansy Parkinson?”

Pansy smiled, feeling shy for a moment. “Maybe.”

Harry put his hand on Pansy’s cheek. “Pansy, may I kiss you?” he whispered.

Pansy studied his green eyes, seeing the weight of expectation in them. “Harry, if we do this, you need to get help. Real help.”

Harry nodded. “I know.”

“And you need to talk to me.”

Harry nodded again, rubbing his nose against Pansy’s. “I’ll try, Pansy. If you’re with me, I’ll try.”

And then _she_ kissed _him_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments are always welcome. You can find me on [tumblr](https://richardayoadeshair.tumblr.com/).


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